Friday, May 2, 2008
IASB Update - Last Week, The Week Ahead Sometimes those folks down in Springfield make big decisions affecting Chicago schools, I hear.  From the IASB, for example:

HB 4471 (Dugan, D-Bradley) requires a school to notify the person enrolling a child that he/she must provide a certified copy (instead of a copy of the certified copy) of the child's birth certificate and requires the school to promptly make a copy of the certified copy of the child's birth certificate for its records and return the original certified copy to the person providing it. The bill was approved by the House of Representatives and was sent to the Senate for consideration.

HB 4900 (Acevedo, D-Chicago)adds contracts providing for the transportation of pupils with special needs or disabilities to the list of exceptions to the requirement that certain contracts be awarded to the lowest responsible bidder. It provides that these contracts must be advertised in the same manner as competitive bids and awarded by first considering the bidder or bidders most able to provide safety and comfort for the pupils with special needs or disabilities, stability of service, and any other factors set forth in the request for proposal regarding quality of service, and then price. The bill was approved by the House of Representatives and was sent to the Senate for consideration.

Hearings Next Week:

HB 3361 (Mitchell,J., R-Sterling)allows for a maximum of 5 additional charter schools exclusively for truants or dropouts in Chicago if the limit on the number of charter schools that may operate at any one time in the rest of the state has not been reached.